In a nation that worships the automobile for the freedom, style, and
status that it confers, the Indianapolis 500, run on or near Memorial
Day eighty-seven times, is an annual rite of passage celebrating
Americans' love affair with speed. Indy recounts the drivers (677 men
and 3 women) who have gone to Indianapolis in the past ninety-five years
to live their dreams, staking their lives on the outcome. It highlights
the faces in the crowd: hardworking Americans, tinhorn celebrities,
hookers, movie stars, gate-crashers, and five American presidents. Terry
Reed focuses his narrative on the track's four quarter-mile-long turns,
each the site of triumphs (including those of such multiple winners as
Billy Vukovich, A. J. Foyt, and Helio Castroneves); grisly deaths (at
least sixty-six, including three unrelated men of the same unusual last
name who died in the same turn but in different decades); and bizarre
heroics (like the sans souci French driver who downed champagne
throughout the 1913 Indy 500 and still won). Reed also examines Indy's
confluence of racing and aeronautics (World War I flying ace Eddie
Rickenbacker once owned the track) and the impact upon the event of such
forces as segregation, gender politics, food, fads, publicity stunts,
world-class partying, and tasteless pop culture. Indy takes readers on
an entertaining, full-throttle ride through the history of one of the
world's most famous races and one of America's most hallowed rituals. It
is the definitive account of the crown jewel of American motorsports.
